On Tuesday 09 November 2004 04:48, jhrothjr wrote:
>
> Another way I've seen it put is that you
> never build anything until you've got an
> order for it, and that policy is applied
> recursively through the entire supply
> chain, from the ultimate consumer all the
> way back to the raw material supplier.
unless that conflicts with levelling out the load. Eliminating waste is
something to strive for, and is something that is elusive - you'll always be
able to find new waste.
>
> I'm not sure what time scale you mean when
> you say "mix their output." Setup still costs
> something, so it's not like they do one of
> each in sequence.
actually, if I understand 'the toyota way' correctly, they do in some
factories. This can be done by working to reduce setup time. There are
internal competitions on switch-over time for certain machines (even
die-making equipment). Liker compares this to formula-1 racing teams, that
can service a car in seconds, instead of the hours a normal garage takes.
For instance, in one factory they replaced crates that move the cars along by
robot-platforms. These robot-platforms can be re-programmed to fit several
body-types of cars. This reduces switchover time from one body-type to the
next to virtually 0 for this step. As a side-effect, it also created more
space and light in the factory, so it became a more pleasant place to work.
> My understanding is that
> minimizing the time required to change setups
> is a very important optimization, but it's not
> like it goes to zero.
that's my impression too.
>
> Minimizing in-process inventory seems to
> be a fairly important theme in XP anyway;
> the only places where I see in-process
> inventory building up in the XP process
> is stories waiting to be developed and
> finished software waiting to be deployed,
> and I have heard of shops that do
> (reasonably) continuous deployment.
These are in my view the most common (and largest). I have also seen waiting
times between story request and estimation and between a story developed by
programmers and acceptance by the customer (especially if gold- or
goal-owners are not on-site. ). The time these spend in inventories can be
used for root-cause analysis ('ask why five times').
kind regards,
Willem van den Ende,
Living Software B.V.
>
> John Roth
>
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Luiz Esmiralha [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 10:58 AM
> > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > Subject: Re: Software Factories Considered Harmful (was RE:
> > > [XP] Why NOT XP?)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Kent,
> > >
> > > Could you ellaborate a bit further? Do you mean the same
> > > production line could be used to produce products that share
> > > common "parts" thus enhancing overall productivity (beat ya
> > > on the product-related word count)?
> > >
> > > Seriously, I see lots of incoherences between software
> > > creation and mass production:
> > >
> > > 1) In a mass production line, work is handed over from
> > > machine to machine (even if the machine is called Joe and
> > > likes to drink a Bud in his lunch). In software production,
> > > handovers are made between thinking entities with very fuzzy
> > > interfaces (humans). Communication overload/overhead is more
> > > of a problem here.
> > >
> > > 2) Stupid, drone work consumes very little of a software
> > > project's schedule. Someone measured that 90% of a
> > > programmer's time is spent thinking (or faking it).
> > >
> > > 3) The level of customization demanded by software customers
> > > is higher than in any other industry. This adds to the cost
> > > of adapting your factory to new technologies, new
> > > requirements, new knowledge domains.
> > >
> > > I can see some resemblance between software development and
> > > mass production from a 10,000 feet perspective, but looking
> > > closer I find these two to be different beasts.
> > >
> > > Of course I'm not Kent Beck (grovel) so my oppinion is worth
> > > about a dented dime. But it's mine and I cherish it. :)
>
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